Closed economic system

From FiranMUX

Firan's economic system was designed to be "closed" [1]. In practice, the implementation of the game introduced unlimited sources of wealth and a few bottomless pits of debt.

In general, most of the commands that players use deal with energy, energy reserves, objects, natural resources, land, or money. All of these currencies are largely liquid (tradable) and fungible (exchangeable) [2]. That is, you can convert most of them to money, and use money to buy most of them.

Contents 1 Types of Currency 2 Economic Flow 3 Faucets and Drains 4 Currency Exchange

Types of Currency

Money is the basic unit of measure by which everything is measured. Experienced players understand the value of money on Firan. Money is measured in silver stenis (singular: steni). Stenis can be converted to objects for delivery and storage in chests and such, but usually money is kept as a special resource on the character or in a bank account. For purposes of the game, stenis have no weight. That is, you can carry 1,000,000,000 of them and it won't weigh you down. Of course, within the fiction of the game, stenis do have weight. When pushed, the staff will just tell you that if you're carrying a billion stenis, it's in the form of ten million-steni paper notes. This is a shortcut we took to make the game be easier for players.

Energy points (EP) are generated by eating food. Energy reserve points (ERP) represent work over time and are used for many commands that take nontrivial time to complete. You nap or sleep to convert energy into energy reserves. Energy and energy reserves are required to do almost anything other than walking and talking. If all you do is move around, talk, and role-play, you might never need energy. If you want to make stuff, fight, hunt, search for secret entrances, or other time-consuming tasks, you will need some energy. Just eat a cheese pie or something. You can give ERP to another player with the assist command.

Land is a limited resource that produces rent (money) for its owner and natural resources for anyone willing to harvest it. Every season, each parcel of land produces a little bit of resources you'd expect to find there. For example, a forest will produce some deer and some trees. A lake will produce fish. Certain resources, such as gems and minerals, don't increase; when they're gone, the parcel will produce no more of those resources. Land is measured out in squares and marked with an X, Y coordinate system. The center of the city (the Forum) is "0.0" and each square's coordinates are measured relative to that place. For example, if you go north twice and east once from the Forum, you'll be at coordinates 2.1. If you go south eight times and west three times from the Forum, you'll be at coordinates -8.-3. Type @toggle coords on to see your location when you move around.

Natural resources are objects generated by the world: plants and animals, minerals and gems, water, and so on. Resources are not objects until harvested. Each resource has a special command to turn it into an object, usually at the cost of a whole lot of ERP. For example, you use the fish command to get fish out of a lake and you use the mine command to find precious minerals and gems.

Objects include all the things made by crafters of various kinds (clothing, food, weapons and armor, furniture, etc.) and resources that have been turned into objects so you can manipulate them. You can turn money into an object with the put down stenis command. You can convert land resources to objects using a variety of commands, the most important (and general) being find and make (but also commands like fish, farm, pick, mine, and so on). The find command searches a piece of land for a specific type of resource. The make command assembles a bunch of other objects into a new object (like making a bed using lumber and nails). Making and collecting objects usually costs EP or ERP.

Food is a special class of object. Food (and drink) objects generate energy (EP) when eaten (or drunk). Certain foods give you more energy than others. Simple resource objects like honey or milk or strawberries can be eaten without preparation. Other food dishes require preparation using the make command (and skills like Cooking or Brewing).

Economic Flow

The basic economic flow is this:

1. Certain players (usually nobles) own land.
2. Land produces (bottomless) rent, in stenis, for its owner on a monthly basis.
3. Land produces resources based on the land type.
4. Players use commands to find and collect resources. This turns them into objects.
5. Players use basic food resource objects to make food dishes.
6. Players eat basic food resources (such as grapes) and food dishes (such as wine) and get energy (EP).
7. Players nap or sleep once an in-character day. This converts EP to ERP.
8. Players spend EP and ERP on all kinds of tasks, including collecting resources, making food, making other objects, suppressing witnesses, bashing doors, and fighting in combat.
9. Players sell objects they harvested/made to the market in exchange for stenis.
10. Player-customized objects sold to the market end up in specialized stores.
11. Players buy "generic" objects from the market and buy customized objects from the stores (this costs stenis).
12. Players pay for baths.
13. Players buy buildings and renovations to existing buildings that they own.

Faucets and Drains

Economies in virtual worlds are described by faucets (sources of currency that flow into the system) and drains ("holes" that consume currency and remove it from the system).

There are several limitless faucets (sources of currency). Rent collected from fictional people who live there is money created out of thin air. Land will consistently produce a certain amount of resources every season, out of thin air. This is the main source of inflation on the game. Another limitless source is the "auto-work" code that pays you a small amount of money in exchange for some ERP every day. Another dangerous source of money is a clan leader's ability to generate enormous amounts of trade goods (as virtual objects/resources) and convert them to actual objects or actual money.

There are also a couple limitless drains of currency. The bathhouse updates your description to tell you that you're not stinky and charges you a thousand or two stenis for the favor. The money it collects vanishes from the economy. Money that is collected for building projects is sometimes paid out to carpenter and architect characters randomly, but is often just stored in a giant account that doesn't flow back into the economy, which needs drains far more than it needs sources.

Currency Exchange

The following table describes exchange mechanisms between the main types of currency:

To:	money	food	EP	ERP	objects	resources	land
From:
money	*	buy food from market	make food	*	buy stuff from market, put down stenis	*	land is occasionally sold between players
food	sell food to market	make more complicated dishes*	eat food	*	*	*	*
EP	auto-work**			sleep or nap	required for make command for many objects	required for some commands that collect resources
ERP	*	*	adrenalin?		required for make command for many objects	required for many commands that collect resources	*
objects	sell stuff to market	*		*	make more complicated objects*	*	*
resources	*	butcher, farm, pick, etc.*		*	a variety of commands that harvest specific resources, like mine, find, etc.*
land	*	*		*	*	land of a certain type is the basic requirement for most resources	*

* These things can be traded for other things between players in various ways. The put down stenis command turns money into an object that can be traded. The assist command gives another player ERP. The give command can give money or an object that one possesses to another player.

** Players can do jobs for other players to get EP in exchange for money or any other goods or services negotiated.